by Lila Bowen
Still, as a man who hated rudeness, he figured he’d get more help out of Inés if he let her finish her goddamn soup, even if it was a dainty sort of business that took for-goddamn-ever. It took everything he had to sit still, not fidget and be vexful, but he by God did it. And there was no sweeter sound than the nun’s spoon scraping on pewter.
“Now, if you’re ready,” the nun said, prim but amused. She took a lantern off the table and walked into a long, shadowy hall.
Rhett stood, cracked his back, and followed. Inés kneeled and pried up a large, flat stone, revealing a dark hole and the top of a wooden ladder.
“It’s a priest hole. It was open when I arrived here. I carted the bones up in sacks.”
She descended halfway into the hole to a pitch-black hell, took the lantern back, and kept going down, down, down. When her feet hit the ground, it echoed.
“Come on down. Only one on the ladder at a time. It’s very old. I’ll light the way.”
Rhett stared down into the hole as Inés lit a candle far below. It occurred to him that he was more scared of going down that ladder than he was of a shoot-out with twenty fellers who wanted him dead. But he wasn’t going to let anybody see that, especially not Dan, who would never let him live it down.
“I’ll go first,” he said, backing carefully onto the ladder and taking the rungs slowly, feeling the wood accept his weight with a slight bounce on every step down. It was cold belowground, and the scent reminded him all too well of the Cannibal Owl’s lair, of cold stone and blood and evil left alone to fester too long. The shadows seemed to shift around the candles, making wraiths and eyes and claws twitch on the walls. The sound of Inés’s footsteps echoed down a short hall, each sound ending like a dying sigh.
“Haunted was goddamn right,” Rhett whispered to himself.
The dirt was the same orangey-brown as it was aboveground, but there were stains everywhere that showed where blood had soaked in to stay. The ground was hard and pebbly, and square niches cut into the dirt walls held more dripping candles that Inés lit as they passed.
Rhett followed the light to a larger chamber, hewn from the dirt and rock and filled with flickering shadows. Rough wooden shelves were built into the walls like carven dentures in an old man’s uneven gums. Rows and rows of books lined the shelves in all shapes and colors, faintly emanating menace like a growling cat. Inés prowled among them, taking down books and inspecting them more closely. A table, shiny with use, held years’ worth of melted candles, and the stool beside it was dimpled from being sat on. Rhett tried to imagine the life Inés had led, alone here with only the souls of damned monks and endless silence. Here, she could take off her habit and veil, knowing that she couldn’t do any harm. It was goddamn sad, and coming from Rhett, that said quite a bit.
Rhett attempted to lean against the table, but it groaned dangerously, so he settled for putting a shoulder against the cold wall. He saw a flash, almost like being punched in the nose, of the bookshelf on its side as giant black-and-yellow lizards tunneled in and tore brown-robed men to shreds using knife-like teeth and stubby black claws. Shivering, he pulled away from the wall and went to the bookcase he’d seen in the vision, pressing against the wood gently to test it.
“It’s fixed,” Inés said sharply. “The Captain sealed it himself after he and his men determined the giant Gila monsters might come back. Now, tell me of your alchemist.”
“He ain’t mine,” Rhett barked. After clearing his throat, he went on. “His name is Bernard Trevisan. He’s a railroad tycoon. Said he’s a few hundred years old, originally from somewhere in Europa. He’s not just an alchemist, though. The Captain called him a lich.”
“A necromancer,” Winifred added, having appeared from the dark hall. She hugged her arms around her middle and shivered. “And he’s in the body of a little Chine girl, about six years old.”
“My sister, Meimei,” Cora added, sliding her arms around Winifred from behind.
Inés nodded. “Tell me more. Tell me everything.”
Rhett recounted his time in the railroad camp while they waited for Dan to join them. He skimmed through his own experiences and failures and tried to focus on describing every moment he’d spent with Trevisan. From their first meeting in the evaluation tent when Rhett had lost a toe, to their final showdown in Trevisan’s locked train car, he recollected hard enough to give himself a headache. Inés and Dan broke in, here and there, to ask a question, and Cora chimed in when she had information from her own interactions with the railroad boss.
When they were done, Rhett felt like he’d been interrogated in Trevisan’s damn doctor chair all over again, and the unnaturally encroaching shadows in the cellar crypt didn’t help, either. All along, Inés had been tracing her fingertips over the books, plucking one here and there and either shoving it back home or placing it in a stack on the rickety table. By the end, Rhett had very little faith that the table could stay upright a moment longer. He felt the same way about himself.
“And what of your sick friend?” Inés pressed.
“The lich sent spiders,” Rhett said. “They didn’t trouble any of us much, but Sam took dozens of bites. Went mad, started seeing things. Tried to shoot us. We tied him down and gave him some… magical cures. But now he’s just sleeping. Only wakes up to scream. I fear…”
He trailed off, but Cora finished for him. “He’s only human, and it’s killing him from the inside.”
Inés nodded and went straight to a big book with gold lettering on it. Of all the books, something about this one struck Rhett as good, like the book had its own thoughts and held miracles for anyone willing to just give it a friendly look-through.
“Poisons I understand more,” Inés said. “Ah! Here. See?” She tapped the book. “Bewitched spider bites. I think I have all the ingredients.”
“Then you can save him?” Rhett asked, his voice high with feeling and hope.
“I can try,” Inés confirmed.
“Then I’d best get back to Sam.” His heart stuttered in his chest. “Hellfire, he’s all alone right now!”
“We have work to do here, Rhett. You can’t do anything to help Sam up there,” Dan said solemnly.
“Well I can’t read, so there’s nothing I can do for him down here, either. Don’t you get all preachy with me, Dan,” Rhett said, shuffling toward the door as if waiting for someone to shoo him on, which is exactly what he was hoping for. “You’re in a mission. You ain’t the most preachy thing here.”
Inés considered him through the veil, which was right disconcerting. Rhett couldn’t read her facial expressions, see how her mouth was turned, but he could sense the sharpness of her gaze. “Your friend is safe. Almost no one comes here, maybe one lost soul every few years. That’s why I stayed in the first place. Help us move the books up the ladder, and then go to your friend.”
Rhett smiled to finally be getting his way. “Let’s get those books up, then.”
Inés’s head turned to the wall. “Perhaps it’s for the best. The shadows seem to follow him.”
Rhett’s spine went over cold at that, and he tried not to look at the stains or the shadows or anything snapping at the candle flames in a space where there was no wind.
“Faster’s better than slower,” he muttered, picking up a stack of books and hightailing for the hall.
It was a bulky operation, carrying the heavy, dusty tomes down the hallway and handing them up the ladder carefully so the rickety rungs wouldn’t break. They made like a bucket brigade, one or two books at a time moving from person to person. Rhett stood at the top, being both smallish and hard to hurt.
And because he was the only one with his head above ground level, he was the first one to hear Sam scream.
Sam had woken up screaming at least a couple of times a day since the spider attack. But this time, it was much louder, and Rhett knew there was something sincerely wrong. In a heartbeat, he was up and running, guns drawn.
Down the hall and out the chapel he
ran, his boots skidding on the gravel left behind by Winifred’s burst statue skin. Throwing the door open with both hands, the first thing he saw was a giant lizard eating one of the spare ponies and making a goddamn mess out of it. The next thing he saw was the tail of one of the creatures poking out the back of the wagon as it tried to squeeze inside. They looked a lot like Gila monsters, with pebbled black skin and yellow stripes and tiny beady eyes. But the ones he could see had a hell of a lot of teeth and were bigger than Samson.
Rhett emptied his gun into the lizard in the wagon as he ran to yank the halters off the tethered ponies, all of whom were pulling and rearing away from the wagon, desperate to join the rest of the herd in scattering into the desert night. He couldn’t have them pulling the wagon over with Sam inside it.
A horse screamed, and Rhett looked around to find Samson fighting one of the lizards, his massive haunches pressed back against the wagon box as he reared and kicked.
“Goddammit, lizards,” Rhett muttered, running around to the front of the wagon and aiming for the Gila’s heart. Three shots in, and it burst into acrid black sand that billowed into Rhett’s mouth like ashes and coated poor Samson until he looked black instead of bay.
“What’s happening?” Dan called.
Rhett patted Samson’s sweaty neck before hollering back peevishly, “We’re fighting giant Gila monsters, you idjit. What’s it look like?” He cut Samson’s traces and ran for the lizard in the wagon just as Sam screamed again.
Ducking into the wagon, he saw Sam trying to drag himself back as the lizard fought its way inside. Bellowing his rage, Rhett emptied his other pistol into the creature at point-blank range, finally hitting its heart and filling the wagon with sand.
“It’s okay, Sam,” he murmured, trying to dust the sand off Sam’s pale face and ease him back down onto the bed.
“The spiders are back,” Sam whimpered. “Oh, lord, they’re gonna go for Rhett!”
“Rhett can take care of himself. You just stay here, okay?” He almost pulled one of the Ranger pistols out of the trunk but didn’t know if Sam was seeing straight these days. “Just hide under this blanket.”
Tugging the sandy buffalo robe over a shivering Sam, he slammed and locked the wagon door from the inside and hurried out into the driver’s seat, where he pulled the canvas taut and tied it shut. That would at least make it a little harder for the lizards to get Sam while Rhett did his best to end all the bastards.
Dan was just outside the mission and had managed to kill the Gila he’d been working on. Rhett was about to ask him if he needed more bullets when another lizard slammed out of the night and knocked him over, which set Rhett’s blood boiling. He hopped up and flung himself on top of the Gila, wrenching an arm under its neck to hold on while he tried to stab it in the heart with his Bowie knife. The lizard, for its part, didn’t particularly want to get stabbed, and it was the bronco ride of Rhett’s life trying to get the monster to focus on him instead of Dan, who was frantically reloading. More and more lizards were appearing like vultures to a carcass, too many for Rhett to handle on his own, especially considering he was holding on to one for dear life.
“Anytime you wanted to help, I’d be much obliged,” he hollered.
But when he looked around for Dan, he couldn’t find him.
Rhett fell with a sudden jolt in the middle of a cloud of black sand, dropping his knife and landing hard enough to knock out his breath. Winifred’s hand appeared to help him up, and Rhett took it and resheathed his knife.
“It’s always interesting with you, Rhett,” she said.
“Well, I’d hate for you to get bored,” Rhett said as soon as he could speak again, looking down at her belly to make sure it was still whole. Which was a bad move, as a Gila monster bit down on his shoulder and shook him like a dog.
“Where’s Dan?” he yelled, punching the lizard in the throat before he realized his Bowie knife would make a much better argument. As soon as the blade sunk in past the hard skin, the monster dropped him and looked at him in utter surprise as its skin started to knit again. That’s when he stuck the knife right in its chest, jagging the blade around until the lizard disappeared in its own puff of sand.
“Getting real sick of sand,” he offered.
“Uh, Rhett?”
Winifred’s back was to him, and Rhett soon realized why. A circle of the fat lizards had surrounded them. Rhett spun around, putting his back to hers and trading his knife for his pistols, which he swiftly and fumblingly reloaded from the bullet pouch on his belt. There were at least a dozen of the monster lizards, and they’d apparently given up on the swift horses to focus on the only critters dumb enough to stick around. With no sign of Dan, Cora, or Inés, it looked like he and Winifred were in for a hell of a fight. At least the lizards were going for lively prey and no longer poking around in the wagon for Sam.
Cora and Inés being scarce he understood, but Dan should’ve been here, and maybe a fire-breathing dragon would have more of an impact on the smaller, less fire-breathing monsters. No time to resent his absent friends, though. He had to fight.
“Let’s do this, girl,” he said. And then he started shooting. So did Winifred.
The lizards didn’t much know what to do with a fight, and they weren’t too fond of guns. It was right peculiar, watching them act like the usual shy lizards and then getting brave enough to screech and show their teeth. Rhett killed one, and Winifred killed one, and then Rhett reloaded while Winifred kept at it with his Henry, which she must’ve snatched off BB’s saddle. Damn, but Rhett wished he had Sam’s Henry, which was locked up in a trunk, in case Sam should again confuse his friends for tarantulas.
“Rhett, Winifred. Close your eyes!”
Rhett’s head spun toward the mission doors, where he found Dan standing behind Inés. The nun was a peculiar thing to see outside, in the middle of the prairie. Her long black habit swayed in the wind, her white veil shining like a beacon in the night.
Rhett didn’t generally like doing what Dan said, but as Inés started to lift her veil, he screwed his eye shut and put a hand on Winifred’s arm.
“Don’t look, you hear?”
“Once was enough for me, fool.”
Even if he couldn’t see what was happening, Rhett could hear the results of Inés’s dastardly power. The lizards made a sucking puff as they turned to stone. Now and then, one would fall over, and then sand sprinkled down onto the prairie and got whipped around on the night wind. He could feel it dancing over the skin of his cheeks and the backs of his hands.
A long pause made him a little nervous, as he could still hear lizards moving but couldn’t tell how many or what prey they were currently after. But Inés’s boots swished closer as she yelled something in Aztecan, so he assumed she had the lizards in hand, or was at least getting a bit more proactive about getting their attention.
“Rhett! In front of you!”
As Dan’s words reached him, Rhett heard it, a lizard scurrying toward him on giant claws. He took the chance of opening his eye, just a tiny bit, and emptied his pistol into the attacking Gila monster, which soon popped into sand and blew away.
The night got real quiet after that, and he ventured to ask, “Is that all of ’em?”
It took a few long moments for Dan to answer, as of course the feller would want to be extra sure. “I think so.”
“My veil is down,” Inés said.
Rhett scrubbed the sand from his face before opening his eye. He and Winifred stood in a small circle of orange dirt, and around that was a much bigger ring of sparkling black stone lizards.
“Goddamn,” Rhett murmured. He looked at Inés, again fully swathed in fabric, the nun’s small hands clasped in front of her. “You’re pretty good in a fight.”
Inés inclined her head. “Only when the cause is righteous. I did not think the Gila monsters would return here. After the monks’ slaughter, the Rangers sealed the hole. They attacked from underground last time, swarming, and I understood th
em to generally be lone, stupid creatures who stay in their caves and tunnels and come out only to feed. This has never happened before.”
Dan looked at Rhett, his arms crossed. “Yes, well, strange things seem to happen around Rhett. Almost like he calls trouble to his side.”
Rhett bristled at that, crossing his own arms and approaching Dan nearly close enough to touch boot toes. “I take offense at that, Dan. I get rid of trouble, not bring it.”
“I’m not saying you mean to bring trouble. You are too unpredictable to make plans on that scope, as I’ve learned through repeated suffering. I’m saying that we know the Shadow is called to trouble, but perhaps, in turn, trouble is called to the Shadow.”
“You know,” Winifred said thoughtfully, “I’ve actually seen more monsters in the last year than I have in my entire life combined. Even in Nueva Orleans, we were carefully hidden and controlled.”
Rhett looked from one to the other, but neither of them seemed to be pulling his tail. “So life ain’t normally this…”
“Chaotic?” Winifred offered.
“Dangerous?” Dan countered.
“… peculiar,” Cora said, stepping out from behind Inés.
Rhett took a step back, casting about for an answer that didn’t make him seem like a walking bear trap for anyone foolish enough to throw their lot in with him. “Maybe it’s just Trevisan’s curse,” he said. “Maybe whatever calls his creatures calls other things as well. We don’t understand his magic. Right?”
“Perhaps,” Inés said, sounding amused. “Either way, the books are inside, waiting. I’ve learned to trust books more than people.”
Rhett looked around the mission yard, hands on his hips. “Well, considering I can’t read for shit, I’ll just rustle up the horses.” Pulling all the halters off the wagon and draping them over his arm, he walked off without looking back. “Horses I understand,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “But people’ll turn on you in a heartbeat.”
“We’re not turning on you,” Dan said, jogging to catch up with him and taking a handful of halters for himself. “We’re just trying to figure out how things are supposed to work. When you showed up, the rules changed. People need a while to adjust to something new. Like horses. A transition, the Captain called it. You have been going through your own transitions, and the rest of us are struggling to catch up while trying to stay alive.”